Introduction Apple's me.
com service is a wonderful thing, no doubt.
It offers painless synchronization of your Keychain, Bookmarks, Contacts, E-Mails, Photos, and other things between your Apple computers or your computer(s) and your iPhone.
Or you can use it to host your own (static) website and photo albums.
At 99$ a year, however, the service can be a tad hard on your purse.
That doesn't mean that the service is not worth the money, by no means, in my opinion 99$ is a very reasonable price considering everything you get (web hosting along can cost you more).
Yet, if there are services that are cheaper or even better, why not give them a try? One such service is Dropbox - an iDisk alternative you definitely should take into consideration.
Dropbox What is Dropbox? Simply put: Dropbox lets you save file in a particular folder on your computer and then takes those files and then copies those files on a server - in other words: Dropbox is an online backup solution.
The really nifty part, however, is that you can access those files from every other computer you have the Dropbox software installed.
Dropbox will synchronize all your files between the computers you use.
The big difference between iDisk and Dropbox is that your files are available on your computer's harddisk when using Dropbox - as opposed to iDisk, where your files are on one of Apple's servers.
The advantage of having your files available locally should be apparent: access to those files is a lot faster.
Be it reading them, writing to them, renaming or moving them around.
As soon as you change a file that resides in your Dropbox folder, the Dropbox software will copy the changed file to the backup server, and next time you start Dropbox on one of your other computers the latest version of your files will be downloaded to that computer, making them available for you to work on again.
Also, Dropbox offers an excellent web interface that allows you access your files from any computer that has a browser installed.
No need to install the Dropbox client on your friend's computer or the computer in the internet cafe, just to download a textfile you need for a few minutes.
Finally, Dropbox allows you to share files with friends.
Simply mark a file or a folder in Dropbox's web interface for sharing, enter e-mail addresses of the people you want to share the files with, and they will be able to view and download the files you shared.
Worried about security? No need! Dropbox encrypts your files, making it literally impossible for anybody to view your private data.
Summary If you are looking for a fast and reliable alternative to iDrive, Dropbox should be your choice.
Its feature set is nearly perfect and you will definitely be surprised at the sheer speed of file uploading and downloading Dropbox is able to achieve.
com service is a wonderful thing, no doubt.
It offers painless synchronization of your Keychain, Bookmarks, Contacts, E-Mails, Photos, and other things between your Apple computers or your computer(s) and your iPhone.
Or you can use it to host your own (static) website and photo albums.
At 99$ a year, however, the service can be a tad hard on your purse.
That doesn't mean that the service is not worth the money, by no means, in my opinion 99$ is a very reasonable price considering everything you get (web hosting along can cost you more).
Yet, if there are services that are cheaper or even better, why not give them a try? One such service is Dropbox - an iDisk alternative you definitely should take into consideration.
Dropbox What is Dropbox? Simply put: Dropbox lets you save file in a particular folder on your computer and then takes those files and then copies those files on a server - in other words: Dropbox is an online backup solution.
The really nifty part, however, is that you can access those files from every other computer you have the Dropbox software installed.
Dropbox will synchronize all your files between the computers you use.
The big difference between iDisk and Dropbox is that your files are available on your computer's harddisk when using Dropbox - as opposed to iDisk, where your files are on one of Apple's servers.
The advantage of having your files available locally should be apparent: access to those files is a lot faster.
Be it reading them, writing to them, renaming or moving them around.
As soon as you change a file that resides in your Dropbox folder, the Dropbox software will copy the changed file to the backup server, and next time you start Dropbox on one of your other computers the latest version of your files will be downloaded to that computer, making them available for you to work on again.
Also, Dropbox offers an excellent web interface that allows you access your files from any computer that has a browser installed.
No need to install the Dropbox client on your friend's computer or the computer in the internet cafe, just to download a textfile you need for a few minutes.
Finally, Dropbox allows you to share files with friends.
Simply mark a file or a folder in Dropbox's web interface for sharing, enter e-mail addresses of the people you want to share the files with, and they will be able to view and download the files you shared.
Worried about security? No need! Dropbox encrypts your files, making it literally impossible for anybody to view your private data.
Summary If you are looking for a fast and reliable alternative to iDrive, Dropbox should be your choice.
Its feature set is nearly perfect and you will definitely be surprised at the sheer speed of file uploading and downloading Dropbox is able to achieve.
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